I like Jim Turner’s post about how some clients become discouraged when their blogs don’t offer insta-results. Jim compares blogs to having a child who “will not be running for President of the United States on her first day of school.”
But blogging — like having children — does offer some immediate return on investment. It forces you to think about things in a whole new way. When you think a great deal about something, you tend to be able to write more clearly about it. And when you write about something, sometimes it helps you to think more clearly about it.
Just as a journal of your personal feelings and innermost thoughts can help you clarify your next steps in life, keeping a journal of your business can help you to recognize patterns, learn more about the weaknesses of your business model and synthesize new information.
I think this is one of the most under emphasized aspects of blogging for business and it deserves more attention.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
steven e. streight aka vaspers the grate 01.18.07 at 11:41 am
You are quite right, as usual, but this is not the ROI that accounting departments can sink their teeth into, nor does it make a good PowerPoint presentation to top management.
The ROT is what counts. Return on Time. Blogs entail a huge investment of time to do them correctly. If a business person thinks they can just use a blog to “generate sales”, drive traffic to a web site, or attract new clients, by simply publishing posts daily, they’re dead wrong.
The business blogger, like any other type of blogger, has to interact with the blog community, post comments on other sites, etc.
Yet, there is great advantage to the discipline of blogging in itself, as you stated.
Jim Turner 01.18.07 at 12:48 pm
This is also a great point and something I did not really address. There are certainly subjective benefits, and like the doctor that says you tell me it hurts but I don’t have an objective sign as to why, does that help the doctor treat? Not really.
As to Steven’s point about the purpose behind a blog, I think that he is seeing it somewhat one sided and as the purist. I have many client’s that only want to increase search results. They want a blog to drive traffic to their retail sites or to a site where some click per action is required. They love the blog’s power to accomplish this without a large marketing and advertising investment. Granted, you will get more results if you are providing good and relevant content, but we are seeing increased sales and traffic in the purpose for which the blog was intended–sales and traffic. Of course, we also have blogging client’s that want to talk about their passion. Their interest is not to increase their sales as much as it is to communicate. Their communication may increase their sales as a derivative to the blog, but that is not the client’s goal or business plan with its use and the purpose behind the campaign. Heck some clients do it for the ego stroke! Sheesh now you have inspired another post! Thanks for the link Teresa.
Kevin Hillstrom 01.18.07 at 1:06 pm
I haven’t figured out yet why financial folks have to justify the ROI on blogs.
Say your business sells software. You package the software with a users manual. Do you measure the ROI of the users manual? You may notice that elements of the users manual help or hurt customers, but you don’t say “We spent $29,000 on the users manual, and we generated $198,000 sales as a result”.
Does McDonalds measure the ROI of the napkins they make available to customers?
Does a parking lot vendor measure the ROI of the color of paint used to mark parking spots?
Maybe people want to measure ROI because they are not comfortable saying “I don’t like your blogging project, please don’t do it”. Don’t know.
Teresa Valdez Klein 01.18.07 at 1:59 pm
Hey guys. My response to both of you is pretty much the same: blogging has different ROIs for different companies and different corporate cultures. It adds value in many, many ways but companies select which ones really matter to them and then hold their blog to that standard.
Teresa Valdez Klein 01.18.07 at 2:13 pm
Kevin: Good point! Although some companies would argue that cutting back on the number of napkins they give out to customers is a way to help out the bottom line…
Do you think they would say the same of a blogging initiative if you talked about it in those terms?
Jim Turner 01.18.07 at 2:36 pm
I’m a reader of Kevin’s blog so I know what he can do with data and numbers. One of the way to track the thoughts of our clients is to talk about other parts of their online campaigns. For instance they are paying (for the sake of argument) $1000 per month in a PPC campaign. The results of those numbers can be seen and quantified. Again for the sake of argument we know that as a result of that $1000 PPC investment it netted paid search CTR’s of 200 visitors from 10,000 page views (please don’t pay attention to the math). Now we can discuss in the instance of the client interested in traffic and numbers natural search generated from the blog and its content to natural search.
The pitch for the communication side can also be done through other marketing efforts, i.e. trade shows, and old school tactics that they employ versus the return for a blog investment. They see those numbers and its more quantifiable.
The napkin idea would be saving $100 per month putting 2 napkins per customer in the bag, but talking on your blog about the fact you decided to continue to keep 3 napkins per customer because your target market is families and we all know what it’s like to not have enough napkins when your two year old wants to finger paint an art project on your minivan window. Then a conversation may start about the environmental impact of adding another napkin and suddenly you have engage hundreds if not thousands of customers that suddenly stop at your fast food joint because they want to see how many napkins they received. The received four and come to the blog to rant. Suddenly I have a explosion that….well you all know the rest. You have actually spoken to more people online than you did the last two trade shows and those trade shows cost you $20,000 each (discounting of course the long tail of a blog). The blog cost you a hosting fee and a 20 minute write up about a stupid napkin!
Easton Ellsworth 01.19.07 at 12:11 pm
I think one of the best immediate ROIs of business blogging is that you can join an online culture of business bloggers who are excited to converse, cross-promote, critique, etc. There’s something special about blogs - they can supercharge our business contacts, increase brand awareness and do a bunch of other things that are difficult to quantify but easy to sense.
Steven said, “Blogs entail a huge investment of time to do them correctly.” They sure can. But I do think a business can improve their Return on Time to where they’re getting their time’s worth and then some.